how are you doing today daphne i'm fine how are you good thanks i mean i'm sure you've
heard this a lot but i absolutely loved the movie i mean you shot this such a long time
ago now i must feel like this journey has been going on so long is it still quite strange to be
to be talking about it yes but i'm i'm i'm happy because i waited for this
three years we shot now now it's been four years we've shot we shot it in 2018. wow so yeah i'm
i mean i'm happy it continues to be somehow part of my life this movie because i i loved so much
working with paul so i'm happy to be part of this universe stuff yeah how would i mean that
gap between shooting it and it being released was so long did it was it feel like the quiet before
the storm for you in a way yeah i couldn't wait for the storm really for three years i was like
i won't i want everybody to see this movie and i i want to have the discussions and the and
and get mad with people talking about it or yeah having big conversations about it yeah i could i
was really really really not anxious yeah anxious in a in a good way looking forward to it yeah it's
a horror a comedy it's a romance story it's a drama it's a phrase i mean it is everything in
one did you ever yeah everything at once did you did you get that sense from reading the script
for the first time were you even surprised when you when you first saw the movie um i mean i i
when i knew that i was gonna do a film with paul verhoeven i saw almost all of his i mean many
most of his movies and it's it's always the case his movies are always really plural and
they they have a mix of genres and you never really know what's what are the motives of it's
of each character and what the movie is about what's the theme of the movie you're always
whenever you have a certainty he always flips everything around and it's a comedy and then
you think ah it's really serious actually no it it's kids is he making fun of the movie
or is it no it's a it's a historical drama and that's the case with Benedetta and i remember
that when i was reading the script i would turn the pages and each page i was thinking there's
not one scene that's normal and even on set um whenever he was he was giving us a direction
he would say for example to me something really concrete and then he would go away and turn back
and say or maybe not so he was always flipping everything around even in the in the way we would
say something and sometimes it was funny sometimes not we never knew it because everything together
at the same time all the time yeah because i mean paul verhoeven has such a wonderful
habit of creating such complex nuance kind of female roles in all of his movies and
now you've had the chance to work with him do you understand how and why that is he's
been able to to bring such brilliant roles for women to screen over the last 30 or 40 years
um i sure remember that when i i was watching his films i thought that the way he would
portray women and the way he would give give them back their complexity was really astonishing to
me and kind of destabilizing me do you say that in english yeah this is it like because it was
very different from what of what i was used to i was used to seeing in films yet it was
closest to my experiences and and my friends experiences and the the women
i know were very complex and especially what what struck me really was with um
female sexuality uh and female how he portrayed female pleasure
which i i could relate to that and that's what that was a very very interesting for me
well i don't know why he has this sensibility but for me he's always he never he's always with
his characters even if they're a male or female he's with them he's you're experiencing
with them they're not objects of his uh camera i don't know how to explain that
so yeah i don't know why he has this uh this sensibility but he's great for that
i mean you mentioned obviously the sort of themes of sexuality and some of the the sequences and
scenes in the movie i mean how important was it i mean obviously when you know
you're shooting scenes like some of the scenes you have to shoot that you trust the filmmaker
you trust the process did you all sort of sit down beforehand to discuss how every
shot would look eventually in the in the finished product from the when i did the when i first met
him he came i had read the script and he came with the so i knew that there were
many sex scenes and nude scenes and he came in the first i mean it was just the first meeting
and he came with before i even knew that i was going to do the part the the movie he came with
the storyboards of those scenes so everything was there i had all the what do you call that
and yeah the fight what the frames would what the frames would be and we discussed it and he said
okay are you okay with this is something that you want to change something that you're not
uh comfortable with and everything was uh was really okay for me and i i had completely complete
trust in him regarding everything but also those scenes because they narrate much more than just
sex and sensuality and that's always in all of his films when you see basic instinct and you see
the sex scene the first sex scene it's not even you're not watching the sex you're i was so scared
of the moment she's gonna take the ice breaker and and kill him or in show girls
the sex scene is over so over the top that it's really funny and i feel that in benedict also the
sex scenes have humor in them uh i forgot what was the question yeah so we discussed a lot about the
the sex scenes we didn't rehearse them but we knew exactly what we had to do and once we were on set
everything was really choreographed i mean we rehearsed before before shooting and
everything was really precise so it was one of the things that i had most fun shooting because
of the preciseness of it and you you could really forget everything and yeah but enjoy the procedure
i i mean because when you give so much of yourself to a role like this is it quite difficult does it
become difficult to watch this back are you okay watching this as as an audience member that's why
it was good the three years waiting yeah i had time to to forget about it and have more distance
with it i mean it's always difficult watching myself and it's not the fact the the being naked
or um it's it's general it's generally difficult but i loved the movie so much that i kind of
i was able to see it with uh distance and not see watching myself and watching the movie i i want to
ask as well about working with visually because i mean she's she's so wonderful as well and you
have such a wonderful sort of presence together on the screen but you do you recall that first ever
meeting between you because i guess when you first met her for the first time you both knew what your
what relationship had to develop between you and so so i just wondered if you when you first met
was ever kind of like hi and then sort of like why we've got a lot to do yeah i'm gonna be very close
when i met her i was a very big fan of hers before and i knew that she was doing the film when i was
i mean i was really excited uh meeting her um because i was such a huge fan and
it so it was not difficult for me to to act like i was in love with her because somehow i was
really in love with her of the actress she is and i would already watch her like i love you
um so yeah i think i remember i was uh i was trying to calm
myself a little bit because i was acting too much like a fan like ah i love you
yeah and obviously i mean you know there's lots of focus and everyone's talking about
the kind of more romantics or sexual scenes in the movie but there's some really dark
scenes as well and i just wondered if when you shoot films you know that they have a dark dark
scenes like torture and so yeah yeah yeah because when you shoot the darker scenes like the torture
scenes can they almost really be the funniest or the she seems to [ __ ] what i mean by that is
when i watch a horror movie and something scary happens sometimes my reaction is to laugh you
know we kind of sometimes we use kind of comedy to cloud over things that are quite effective i
just wonder when you shoot the dark scenes do they can they be weirdly enjoyable in on a set
yeah because it's the aspect of catharsis do you say that in english catharsis yeah
yeah just yeah yeah cathartic or cafes yeah yeah the cathartic aspects of it and to kind of uh um
get away something that it's really your worst nightmare to be able to to act it it's somehow
okay it's never gonna happen it's yeah cathartic like exhausted i don't know how to
to say that for my english um i mean i wouldn't say that it was funny
because yeah maybe not fun but uh no it's it's always very interesting to be i mean i
feel very lucky to be able to to live so intense experiences that i would and somehow i'm never
scared of of living i don't i don't know it's kind of calms me down it's like psychotherapy
but my final question is because obviously we were speaking before about the fact that
this film has been playing for for a while now and it was made a while ago it's been on the
festival circuit for some time i'm sure you've traveled with the film uh you spoke about having
sort of dialogue with audiences and talking to people about it has it been quite interesting
seeing how the film plays in different places have you noticed different festivals and different
nations that the film has traveled to have had different responses different reactions um
not really i didn't have uh i mean no one came to me with uh with extreme reactions
and uh or bad reaction um many people asked me about religion where uh which i then jesus would
and i had no answer on that because for me it's not a film about religion i mean it it could be
viewed as partly as something that but it's a film about faith about love about
politics about about many many many many many things so yeah there were many times that they
would ask me questions very about religion where i had no answer really but i had no
bad reaction but i don't know if people come to you with like i hated the movie
the main reason is not bad reactions is because the film's so good probably
you would think but thank you so much for your time for speaking to me today i know
you've had a busy day so it's really appreciated and um and yeah i hope you
can carry on speaking about this movie for many years to come because it yes
ladies and gentlemen you're watching hey
you guys hey you guys how are you guys is that from the goonies yes